1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for implementing an internet protocol; and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for implementing an internet protocol in a regional registration paging network.
2. Description of Related Art
A network having mobile internet protocol with regional registration is known in the art. (See, C. Perkins, Editor, “IP Mobility Support”, RFC 2002bis, March 2000, and C. Perkins et al., “Mobile IP Regional Registrations,” Internet draft (work in progress), draft-ietf-mobileip-reg-tunnel-02.txt, March 2000.) The network has a hierarchy of one or more foreign agents for handling regional registrations of a mobile node visiting one or more internet protocol subnetworks. Paging support for mobile internet protocol is also known in the art. (See Cellular IP, draft-ietf-mobileip-cellularip-00.txt, and Hawaii Internet, draft-ietf-mobileip-paging-hawaii-00.txt.) Paging support enables mobile nodes that are not actively communicating to enter an idle mode in which the network does not need to know the exact location of the mobile node. When the network has data packets destined to an idle mode node, it pages the mobile node in order to learn the exact internet protocol subnetwork of the mobile node. Paging support can be also specified for mobile internet protocol with regional registrations.
One disadvantage of the prior art paging solutions is that the mobile node needs to be continuously operating and consuming battery power. The network-level protocol operation in the prior art either disregard the power-constrained operation, or assume that the link layer provides support for this kind of operation.
The network having mobile internet protocol with regional registrations known in the art does not address saving battery power.